Northern Lancet, and Gazette of Legal Medicine, Vol. 2

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Excerpt from Northern Lancet, and Gazette of Legal Medicine, Vol. 2: November, 1850-March, 1851 From the extract from Blackstone, Gen tlemen. You will perceive that boys under ten years of age have been tried, condemned, and executed 3 '2 us that seven. Years of age is, in this country, the limit Within which crime cannot be legally imputed -to any one, there is, however, a precedent of a pardon having been granted a child under seven who was indicted for homicide but this case should not have gone to the jury, for, as l have al ready said, the lac7 presumes that under seven years of age, no person can have sufiicient dis cretion, and no averment, says Lord Hair, can be received against the presumption. Even under twelve there must be proof of ap parent capacity. Now, this being the ~case, it becomes a matter of some consequence to ascertain accurately the age of a precocious child who is stated to be under seven years of age, in an arraignment for a felony. How is his fact of absolute infancy to be ascertained? The law says, if there be any doubt, the cul prit must be brought into court to be inspects ed by the judges, and, if any doubt still re main, the court may take steps to prove the Fact '7 The only steps that can be taken, is the Opinion 'of a medical man, and, in such a case, a practitioner is called, not merely to give his Opinion, but to state the foundation ofit.' This is not to grounded, as you are already aware, on the development of intelle t, the precocity of mind being influenced by ma ny circumstances, it must rest upon more uni varying evidence, and this is readily found in the progress of dentition. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.